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Warm, dry weather prevailed for much of the week in the Midwest, allowing corn planting to near completion. In addition, soybean planting quickly advanced, passing the halfway mark early in the week. Toward week’s end, showers and thunderstorms boosted soil moisture in the upper Midwest. Farther west, scattered showers dotted the nation’s midsection – early in the week on the southern Plains and late in the week on the northern Plains.

When historical averages are needed, an Olympic average often is used rather than a simple average in calculating benchmarks in farm bill commodity programs. For example, the Agricultural Risk Coverage (ARC) program that was passed by the Senate Agriculture Committee uses Olympic averages of prices and yields in calculating benchmark revenue. In this post, Olympic averages are compared to simple averages for corn and soybean prices. Generally, Olympic and simple averages will track one over time. The relationship of Olympic to simple averages depends on the nature of distributions across time.